it is probable that i'm just racist

[anacrucis]

Researching a case today, I called Philadelphia Gas Works on behalf of a customer. In a prerecorded message on the other end, I was greeted by a friendly and articulate woman who informed me with impeccable diction that my PGW representative was required to axe me a series of questions to verify my identity

Comments

[lietya]

Oh, dear.

I will say that the tendency of language is to evolve - put another way, when something like that is SO pervasive, it eventually tends to get adopted by "typical" speakers and loses the slang/dialectical/low-class stigma. (The "axe" pronunciation is in our dictionary already, labeled "dialect," so what we're seeing is step 2.... where it stops being solely dialect.)

personally speaking, though, this gives me the ickies. *sigh*

[anacrucis]

IMO it's still not quite as bad as using apostrophe's to pluralize word's.

[lietya]

no, not quite. up there, though. :)

[anacrucis]

In all seriousness though, It was so clear and deliberate that it had to have been intentional and not just a dialectical bleed-through. Someone consciously decided that a certain percentage of customers would be more comfortable hearing the word "axe" than "ask" or something.

[lietya]

That's how it starts, though. It's the pronunciation equivalent of the New York Times choosing to permit informal words that were banned a generation ago - once it starts turning up in "educated/edited" contexts, it's potentially on the slide to respectability.

[anacrucis]

It's interesting to see the process in action first hand, that's for sure.